


Burning Alive

by dovingbird



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Instigation, Digital Sex, Multi, Oral Sex, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:24:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She hasn't seen Gale in three years. She's liked it that way. So, of course, the second her relationship with Peeta is growing stronger than ever, that baker's boy has to go out and invite Gale to stay with them when he comes passing through District Twelve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Written during NaNoWriMo '13. Threesomes are massively overlooked in this world, and they're rarely done convincingly, so I went out of my way to make this as realistic as I could. But, then again, I don't think I had to try very hard. Peeta and Gale made it very clear in Mockingjay that they weren't out to fight over Katniss or anything - they just wanted her to be happy. So there's always the chance that her being happy didn't include her having to pick just one of them, right?

"He's not staying here."  
  
"Katniss." Peeta wipes the sweat from his forehead, leaving a smeak of flour that softens the annoyance in his eyes. "He doesn't have anywhere else to stay."  
  
"So he stays in a hotel. He can definitely afford that." She can hear the dryness in her tone, dryer than the cake she tried to bake Peeta to surprise him on his birthday that one time. Peeta keeps staring at her in that little way he has, the concern bordering on condescending. She grits her teeth as she begins weaving her braid. "What?"  
  
"It's Gale, Katniss." She still can't help but stiffen just at the sound of his name. "He was your best friend for five years."  
  
"Five years isn't that long." But she can taste the lie as it clips her teeth, because here in District Twelve the average lifespan used to be less than forty. Her father didn't even make it that far.  
  
There's a long few moments of silence, only broken by her hair whispering against itself and the smooth efficiency of the rolling pin.  
  
She looks down at the floor. "You know why, Peeta."  
  
"I know," he says softly. He sets the pin aside and she can feel him watching her again. "But you know him better than anyone. Better than his own mother."  
  
She's not sure she believes that.  
  
"Do you really think... _really_ think...he could've wanted what happened?"  
  
Katniss recognizes distantly that they've been dancing around this subject for the past three years, but have never spoken of it. Not even when Peeta absently dreamed aloud of children and brainstormed a few names and Gale's sharp, rough face popped right up in her head. He's been kind, Peeta has. He's given her all the space and time in the world to heal. But if the pang in her chest is of any indication, not a single bit of healing has taken place.  
  
"I honestly can't tell you, Peeta. I really can't."  
  
He is silent. The rolling pin begins again.  
  
"I told you what he was planning with Beetee-"  
  
"Prim wasn't part of the plan."  
  
Katniss's eyes flash out the window, to the rose bush that's still flourishing in the warm weather. Peeta snips a bud off every few days and places it in a little glass on the table, where they eat. Sometimes when the screaming in her ears gets too loud at night and she doesn't want to disturb Peeta, Katniss is guilty of wandering downstairs and conversing with the rosebud. Telling Prim everything that she wanted to do with her. Everything that she'll now do _for_ her.  
  
One thing's for sure. If she can ever calm her mind, if she can picture a world where she might be able to have a child without wanting to cut the thing out of her on the off-chance that everything could begin again, then her daughter's name is already beyond decided.  
  
"We have three spare bedrooms, Katniss," Peeta says softly. He begins cutting the cookie dough into little shapes, the cutter's rhythmic thump breaking the tension that still sizzles between them. "You can go out. You can hunt. You don't even have to see him."  
  
But she knows better. Because there are nights she still dreams of Gale and wonders what he's doing now, what they could be doing together. And since when has she ever been able to deny her curiosity? She'll see him, all right. And every single piece of shit will hit the fan in a second.  
  
"It's just for one night. And then he'll leave in the morning."  
  
Katniss leans forward and sighs into her hands, rubbing at her eyes. And then she nods. "Okay."  
  
~~~  
  
  
He hasn't changed a bit, she thinks as she stands at the top of the stairs and watches Peeta greet Gale. They actually embrace, like long-lost friends, and Katniss thinks vaguely of the times she's heard Peeta on the phone with people, wonders if he's been keeping up with Gale way more than he's been admitting. Peeta's smiling and Gale's smiling and Katniss is wrapping her hand just a little tighter around the banister and wishing a splinter would break her skin.  
  
"Come on, come on in." Peeta is ever the hospitable one, picking up Gale's bag and gesturing vaguely through the living room. "We're gonna put you in there."  
  
Katniss feels gratitude welling up in her belly. She and Peeta sleep on the second floor. She hadn't known if she could handle sleeping with Gale just on the other side of their wall. At least the floor gives them some distance.  
  
"Thanks." Gale looks out the window, and just for a moment Katniss sweeps her eyes over him, studying the strong muscles and veins in the back of his neck, the breadth of his shoulders, the chiseling of his biceps. No. No, he hasn't changed a _damn_ bit. "...is, uh...is Katniss out hunting?"  
  
Peeta's eyes flick up and lock with hers for just a moment before going right back to Gale. "I'm sure she'll wander in sometime."  
  
"I see."  
  
Katniss shies away at that moment, because even after all these years she knows Gale. And she knows he's enough of a predator to smell her.  
  
~~~  
  
  
"I'm making dinner."  
  
"I'm not hungry."  
  
Peeta sighs. "Katniss..."  
  
"I'm really not. It's fine."  
  
Peeta slips into the bedroom and sits a few feet away from her on the bed. She's grateful for that too. She has an endless supply of gratitude toward this man that she can't live without nor that she can ever repay. "He misses you."  
  
She glances up, mildly surprised. "Did he say that?"  
  
"He kept looking around and out the window. He was more fidgety than I've ever seen him."  
  
Probably because he could see the primrose bush. She sinks back into herself.  
  
"Listen, Katniss, I know what a man looks like when he's missing something."  
  
She wants him to stop, but she knows he won't.  
  
"I saw it every day in a mirror back then."  
  
Back Then. After their first Games. Before the Quell. Before the madness, when everything still made sense and went in order. Before she tied herself to him again and tried to keep her distance because it was for her own good.  
  
Always for her own good. Never for his.  
  
"I think you should come down to dinner. I think you should see him."  
  
She curls up into a tight ball, wrapping her arms around her legs. She rests her chin on her knees. And because he knows he's not getting anything else out of her, Peeta leaves.  
  
~~~  
  
  
She's been staring at the wall for three hours now, and her stomach has audibly rumbled once every six minutes by her count. She could last longer. She really could. But this is her own home, and she decides that she shouldn't have to. Peeta's arm is locked around her, but he's taken to this life much easier than she has. He doesn't stir when she gently loosens his grip, nor when she presses a soft kiss to his forehead and nudges a bit of his bangs away from his eyes. And then she climbs out of bed and goes on the hunt.  
  
Her tread has always been light, thanks to her father, and she is beyond comfortable in her bare feet. She picks her way down the stairs, avoiding the creaking spots that are starting to settle in already, and heads toward the kitchen.  
  
To get to the kitchen she has to go past Gale's bedroom. The door is open, providing the ventilation that she knows he craves, and she pauses for a moment, shrinking into the shadows like he has night vision. Silence. She moves on.  
  
She categorizes the food by possible noise production. She finally settles for spooning out a bowl of black eyed peas and a slice of bread and eats as quickly as she can at the counter. There's no point in trodding all the way to the dining room, after all, since she and Peeta rarely eat in there anyway. She's halfway through the meal when the hair on the back of her neck stands up. He's there. She knows he is, even before she turns her head.  
  
Meeting his eyes is just as painful as Clove's knives. It's instinct that has her gripping the spoon like she does, like it's a knife, but Gale doesn't even flinch. He just stands in the doorframe, almost filling it with his wide frame, staring her right in the eyes.  
  
She swallows painfully.  
  
They're waiting, she realizes, waiting like they always seemed to be doing right around the end of it all. Waiting for the night to pass. Waiting to fall asleep at all. Waiting for their feline protector to bring them food and not forget about them until they starve to death. But this time, they're waiting each other out.  
  
She'd forgotten how notoriously stubborn they both are.  
  
Finally he flicks his eyes past her, focuses on the tiny table shoved against the wall, and saunters over to it. The man's a bear. She'd forgotten just how big he is in person, too. His fancy new job must have him working out constantly, looking as buff as possible for the cameras that'll always be interviewing every time he turns around. She presses back against the counter as if he needs the room - the kitchen is so enormous they could probably fit a year's worth of tributes in here - and pretends she isn't painfully aware of every step he takes.  
  
It's when he scoops up the bottle of clear alcohol, one she swiped from Haymitch when all of this Gale-coming-over nonsense became a reality, and pours a little in a glass sitting on the table that she feels a little coldness settling in the pit of her stomach. "That doesn't belong to you."  
  
He looks up, arching his eyebrows and blinking at her. "The statue speaks."  
  
She stalks across the kitchen and snatches the bottle from him. "That _doesn't belong_ to you."  
  
He smirks. Tosses back the shot like it's nothing. He doesn't wince either, not even when his Adam's apple bobs in his throat and he slams the glass back down. "Now, that wasn't what District 13 taught us. We share everything, don't we?"  
  
How dare he speak of that place, that time, everything that went on there like it's nothing. And besides, that wasn't even what she meant. This alcohol? What it does, how it numbs people? It belongs to her and Haymitch. They're the only ones that get it, really, that have been there in that arena and don't have coping mechanisms or sanity like Peeta does. They need something else to carry them. And that's what this is. She hugs the bottle protectively to her chest, narrowing her eyes.  
  
He waves his hand, beckoning. "C'mon, gimme the bottle, Catnip. Otherwise we're never gonna get through the night."  
  
"Don't call me that."  
  
Silence. He leans back in his chair and folds his hands, placing them over his stomach. "You used to like it when I called you that."  
  
She used to like his kisses too.  
  
She clutches the bottle a little tighter and dips her head, hair falling around her like a curtain. And since he doesn't say anything, neither does she. She just tips her head back and tastes the acid on her tongue. Jesus, how does Haymitch take this stuff?  
  
"You can't just keep it all to yourself."  
  
She glances at him over the rim of the bottle, narrowing her eyes. "Since when did you drink this shit anyway?"  
  
His eyes widen. He never heard her curse a lot. Only if she missed her target on a particularly hollow day, when her need for food and money was most clear in her head. She wonders if this is another example of her seeming so 'pure' to people, like Finnick teasing her and Johanna stripping down to nothing in that elevator.  
  
It's a sign of how well she's healing that she still feels that well of numbness in her belly when she thinks of Finnick, isn't it?  
  
Gale flicks his eyes over her face as he cocks his head to the side. "Sometime between then and now." He beckons one more time, and this time she sits the bottle down on the table and slides it toward him. She's still not willing to get too close. "Not that you'd care."  
  
He sounds wounded, and that shouldn't bother her, but it really does. She cups her elbows in her hands, tightens her arms around herself until she can barely breathe. "Why _should_ I care?"  
  
"You used to. About a lot of things."  
  
"Stop it." She shakes her head, first slowly and then picking up speed. "Just stop it. Stop talking about what I... _used_ to like. I'm not that girl anymore."  
  
"I noticed that." He doesn't bother with the glass now either. He just drinks from the bottle like he's been hanging out with Haymitch, and God, but that's a weird comparison for her to make somewhere in her head, because Haymitch and Gale, they're two separate universes. Always were. Even when they were all together in District Thirteen, through propos and hovercrafts and whatever else, they were on opposite sides of the room, taking up two different slices of her time. It unsettles her. She feels her skin start to itch in that way that used to carry her straight out into the woods.  
  
She inhales, slow and sure. She puts that distance between them again and hops up on the counter, dangling her legs like a child, dipping her head. She won't look at him. She'll just reach other and grab her bread and work at it, eyes on the cold floor far beneath her bare feet.  
  
"...you never missed me, did you?"  
  
Her plan to stay far over here, as distant from him as anything, is hard when he's still talking, almost like he doesn't want this distance as much as she does, which is just utter nonsense, really.  
  
"You got yourself all settled in here with Peeta Mellark, just like you always wanted, and you never looked back. Nice, Katniss. Real nice."  
  
"Oh, fuck off," she spits, tossing back her head, glaring at him with fire in her eyes that she can just _feel._ "You're the one who left. Who ran. You're the one who knew exactly what you did, and you tried to hide from it."  
  
His hand tightens around the bottle. "I didn't do a damn thing. I wasn't even there, Katniss. Do you remember that? Do you remember the whole thing where you let me get scooped up by the Peacekeepers? 'Cuz, you know, I might still have nightmares about that."  
  
"I still have nightmares about Prim!" She almost screams the words at the top of her lungs, but Gale doesn't even flinch. If anything, he leans forward. "I have nightmares about every single fucking person in that arena, Gale, and outside of it, anyone I put an arrow through, anyone that I had to just sit and watch die. How _dare_ you compare yourself to me."  
  
He lifts his chin in that proud way that always used to infuriate her when they were kids. "So anything I went through doesn't matter compared to you. Is that what you mean?"  
  
Her tongue dries up.  
  
"You're the only person who suffered. You're the only one who went through anything at all." He nods slowly. "So that's the Katniss Everdeen sitting in front of me today. All right. I get it. And, really, I guess I'm not all that surprised."  
  
She leans forward. She grips the counter just a little harder. "I don't expect you to understand," she murmurs. "I don't expect _anyone_ to understand-"  
  
"Not even the people that went through it with you? 'Cuz I'm pretty sure Peeta was there the whole way." He snorts. "Hell, I think he had it worse than you, didn't he? Remember what we had to undo?"  
  
She ducks her head so fast that she thinks she might break her neck.  
  
"I remember. I don't think I could ever forget. Because I remember there were a few nights where I really didn't want anything about him to change-"  
  
"Don't start," she whispers.  
  
"-because I could've had you."  
  
Her breath leaves her in a rush. And then she realizes she can't really start breathing again, not really, not when her heart's pounding this hard. You'd think her body was immune to adrenaline after years of being juiced up on it 24/7, but apparently not. Apparently it still affects her just like everyone else. She recognizes this feeling, but normally when the panic attacks come she has Peeta there to hold her tight, to smooth her hair, to talk her down, but she doesn't have that right now, does she? She has Gale.  
  
She shoves off the counter in a rush and stomps toward him, snatching the bottle away, and tips it back like it's water.  
  
She's not going down the easy path right now.  
  
She's not sure how much she drinks, but by the time she sets the bottle back down it's half-empty, and she wipes the stray drops from her lips. "Go on," she ends up muttering.  
  
Gale lifts his eyebrows again, forehead crinkling.  
  
"I know that's not it. You have more to say. You've _always_ had more to say. So why stop now?" She slides the bottle toward him and plops down on the edge of the table. She feels safer there than in a chair, for some reason, like she's hovering, just like the way her head is starting to lift off her body. Gale glances over her before taking the bottle back. "So go on. Chew me up. Give me hell."  
  
He snorts and takes a quick drink, barely enough to wet his whistle. "I'm not you, Catnip. Some of us have self-restraint."  
  
"Is that so?"  
  
"I'm not surprised you don't know." His eyes sparkle in that mischievous way. "I mean, it can be a scary thing when you've never tried it before."  
  
"Do you mean like manners? Tact? Class? Personal experience, right?"  
  
He grins at her. There's a lazy quality to his smile, like they're kicked back in the meadow watching the mockingjays fly overhead and chewing on stems of grass. But there's something more mature to it now. They're not kids. Not anymore. She feels a little warmth somewhere deep inside her starting to melt the ice she's taken such solace in. "Now, that sounds like the old Katniss Everdeen. Guess she's not gone after all."  
  
They hold each other's eyes for a long few moments before she breaks eye contact. Her her her. It's _always_ her. She clears her throat, raw from the drink. "Well, you came down here for something. Want some food? Midnight snack?"  
  
He chuckles. "I came here for you, Katniss. You crept right past the door."  
  
She stiffens in indignation. "There's no way you could've heard me."  
  
"I didn't say I did." He bites his bottom lip for a moment, eyes focusing indistinctly on her form. "You smell good."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Better than you used to, at least." He snaps his eyes back to hers. "Guess that's the benefit of running around with the Capitol for a few weeks: you learn how to take a bath."  
  
She should throw something back at him, something witty, but she's staring again and not really sure how to respond.  
  
His voice goes a little thick, a little hazy. "And anyway...I always know when I'm being watched."  
  
"I wasn't watching you."  
  
He smirks, all nice and slow. "Remember when we used to not lie to each other?"  
  
She's having some trouble breathing again. He offers her the bottle this time instead of sliding it over, and she takes it, painfully aware of the warmth of his fingers as she does.  
  
"I didn't mean it, Katniss," he whispers, voice barely over a rumble. "I loved her too, you know. I took care of her for you. I never wanted to stop."  
  
"But it still happened. You knew something like this would happen, didn't you? Wasn't it your plan all along?"  
  
He breaks the eye contact, and she feels a little thrill of triumph just under the low reverberations of her numbness. "If it was...then I was wrong."  
  
He was wrong.  
  
Just like that. A feather could knock her over right now. _He was wrong._ When was the last time she ever heard him say something like that?  
  
She has the distant feeling that now was the time to cry. She also has the realization that she hasn't cried in three years, and she wouldn't be doing it now.  
  
"You have to know, Katniss, that if I could go back and put myself in her place, I would. Without question. Without a doubt. Because, I mean...Jesus, what do I have now? In comparison to her, who had her whole _life_ ahead of her, I have _nothing._ "  
  
She blinks rapidly. "You have a job. You have the reputation that the war gave you. You have-"  
  
"None of that keeps me warm at night. None of that's gonna give me something to look forward to in five, ten, twenty years. It's nothing." He kicks his feet up on the table and stares at the alcohol. He looks an awful lot like Haymitch right then, actually. A little chill spreads through her. "But maybe that's okay. Maybe I don't need anything else. Maybe I'm not supposed to have it. So maybe that's my penance."  
  
The silence keeps stretching out between their sentences, until finally Katniss can't take it anymore. She swallows and wraps her arms around her legs, containing herself for the second time that day, preparing for what she knows she shouldn't ask. "What _do_ you want?"  
  
He runs his thumb over the rim of the bottle. And then he looks up at her, and his eyes are so warm, so sharp, so intense that she feels a shock shoot right down her spine. "You really wanna know?" he murmurs.  
  
She digs her fingers into her knees. She knows better. She really does. "Yeah."  
  
He tilts the bottle toward her, as if pointing. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to.  
  
The shock shivers through her again.  
  
"I've done a lot of hiding. A lot of ducking and running. I've tried to get away from it as best I can, but you'd better believe I can't."  
  
"I'm nothing special, Gale-"  
  
"You're what I've always wanted," he interrupts, squinting in thought. "From the day I first saw you shoot that bow, I knew you were gonna be something to be reckoned with. I just didn't know how much."  
  
This is dangerous territory. Her lover is asleep upstairs, right over their heads. He's left her alone today and yesterday, ever since the question of Gale loomed over their heads, but just the night before that she'd crawled on top of Peeta and kissed him desperately and slid his pants down past his hips, and he'd given up every ounce of control without any hesitation. She cared about him. She needed him desperately.  
  
She seemed to need a lot of people, didn't she? Even when she pretended she didn't.  
  
"You can't do that to yourself." Now that he's confessed that he was wrong, now that she remembers how desperately he loved Prim too - how careful he was with her when they were growing up, how when he came over to see Katniss he'd always bring a little something for her little sister, how he swore he'd protect her if and when something took Katniss out of the game - she's remembering the old feelings, the old emotions, the old desperation of making sure that he was always okay. "You can't."  
  
"I tried my best. I went out with other people. I've been with them. I've kissed them and I've slept with them, and every single fucking time it just reminded me what I did to you, and how I never got to tell you I was sorry." He thumps the bottle down on the table after a quick chug and shakes his head. "God, what the fuck am I _doing?!_ I didn't even come here for this. I was just passing through town. I was just gonna sleep in the fucking _meadow,_ but Peeta got a hold of me, and before I knew it I was here telling you all this shit you don't even need to know. Goddammit."  
  
She leans forward. "It's the bottle. Give it here." But when she tries to take it away, he won't let her. He puts his other hand on top of hers and stares at her, and she hears that someone's breathing's kicked up, but it takes her a second to realize that it's hers. "...Gale."  
  
"I don't wanna go back if things are gonna be how they were before. I don't."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I know you, Katniss. I know how you work. And I know that I'm gonna leave and you're gonna stay here and we're gonna go right back to not talking and pretending like we never even happened, and I don't _want_ that."  
  
"Gale-"  
  
"If I already fucked up this much and told you everything you didn't need to hear, then I need you to promise me that I didn't do it all for nothing. Please."  
  
"I don't know if I _can._ "  
  
"If there's anything I know about you, it's that you can do any-fucking-thing you try. And you always win."  
  
She leans closer, dropping her voice to a whisper, hearing the desperation on it. "Just because you're sorry, it doesn't change the fact that it-"  
  
He lets the bottle go, wraps his hand around the back of her neck, and kisses her.  
  
And Jesus, is it a kiss. She forgets that she's supposed to be holding him at bay. She forgets that this entire night isn't even supposed to be happening. She tastes the alcohol, the mutton Peeta prepared for dinner - the simplest of recipes, one that even _he_ can't screw up - and then beneath it, right there, is the taste of _him._ The taste that brings the meadow right before her eyes. The taste of innocence and clarity and not playing the Capitol's stupid fucking games. God help her, but she drops the bottle to the floor and grabs him desperately, one hand in his hair, the other on the sleeve of his t-shirt.  
  
He scoops one arm under her and pulls her straight into his lap, until her legs are wrapped around him and her feet are touching the floor and there's not a breath between them, and they kiss. Their lips meet in this twisted, easy sort of way, mirroring their steps when they're hunting, mimicking how easy it was to always be back-to-back with him when there were bullets flying overhead and fire in the sky. But it's different now. The last time she kissed him, there was softness against the familiarity, like they were exploring each other, discovering each other, finding out what it actually meant to be with each other on yet another level.  
  
Now, it's different. There's experience here. She knows just how to shift her hips to make him hitch his breath, to make them sink into each other just a little more. He cups her rear end without a hint of hesitation or shame, just holds her and supports her so she knows she isn't going to fall. They've been places, she recognizes. They've done the experimentation that they probably should have done when they were far younger. And now they know. They know so much more than they ever did before.  
  
Gale breaks away from her, but just for a moment, just long enough to turn his head and touch his lips to her jawbone instead. He traces along it, and with her eyes closed Katniss swears she can see a sky full of shooting stars, each more beautiful than the last. She pulls him closer. She doesn't know why she didn't think of doing that sooner.  
  
She doesn't know how long they're there - time doesn't have a meaning when there's no clock to tick mindlessly, when you're too lost in someone gently sucking at your collarbone to see if the sun is tinting the horizon yet - but, sure enough, Gale eventually stops. She doesn't know why at first. She brushes her hand over the back of his neck, feeling the scratching short hairs from where he recently had a trim right at the nape of it, trying to urge him back into his place, but he doesn't move an inch. When she opens her eyes, she realizes why.  
  
Peeta.  
  
Her heart stops beating just in time for her mind to become overwhelmed by images, memories, everything: the bread he threw her, the first time they met eyes in school, him willing to put his life in her hands with that nightshade, her fighting to touch him through a transparent forcefield, the syringe tucked between her fingers as she looks for a way to end his life, his fingers wrapping around her throat, that feeling where she thought she might really end his life because he was a danger to them _all,_ and finally him outside her window planting that primrose bush and how he was there when she fell apart for once and for all.  
  
This was why she didn't pull Gale closer until she lost her mind. Because Peeta is everything to her, and now she's lost him.  
  
"I see you found each other," Peeta murmurs from the kitchen doorframe, hands tucked in the pockets of his pajama pants. "I knew it had to happen eventually."  
  
She can't speak. She's probably lucky that Gale can. "Listen, Mellark-"  
  
"I mean, that's half the reason I had you here, isn't it? That I invited you in? Because something was off in her without you here. It just was. And I knew it and I wanted to fix it and...and here you are now. Fixing it."  
  
She's tensing up now like an animal. She can feel her muscles bunching, wanting to escape, wanting to flee, and as if he can sense that tension Gale's arms wrap tighter around her. That's it. That's the trigger. She tries to leap away and he has her ever-so-carefully contained.  
  
"She figured it out, didn't she?" Peeta asks softly, his voice a little raspy. "Which one she couldn't live without."  
  
"I think she did." Gale doesn't loosen his arms. Just keeps her tucked in there even though she's fighting and watching her life burn to the ground. "And I think we both know who it is."  
  
"Peeta, please, I didn't mean-"  
  
"Katniss, it's all right. I get it." He gives her a strange little smile, and she doesn't understand it because he should look sad, broken down, not... _serene._ But maybe that's it. Maybe he's gone so far off the deep end at the thought of losing her that there's no other way for him to be. "I understand."  
  
"But I-"  
  
"I've always understood, you know? Even when we were in the Games, I knew that you were thinking of him, and I knew that you wondered what it'd be like to go back to him, and-"  
  
"No, that's not-"  
  
"-even though you keep saying you don't, I saw the way you looked at each other. Even when I was hijacked, I saw it. Things happened. They did. And there's no getting around that, you know? Not when you two get each other like you do. So I understand. You need each other."  
  
"But I _need you too!_ "  
  
"I know. So I'm not going anywhere."  
  
"...what?" She stares at him. Then she tilts her head back and stares at Gale. He's looking at Peeta, but he's calm, not angry or possessive. Just gives him a little nod. "But I...I don't..."  
  
"You're a good man, Mellark," Gale murmurs. He's smoothing Katniss's hair, and she's still too stunned and confused to jerk her head away. "Thanks."  
  
"I don't understand," she whispers, trying to be the voice of reason. "I...this whole time, I've been trying to figure out..."  
  
"That's just it, Katniss." Peeta smiles again. "Maybe you don't have to choose."  
  
But that doesn't make sense. Things like that don't happen. She's never _seen_ them happen. You always have to have one or the other, never both, never... "Are you serious?"  
  
"C'mon, Gale and I are both gentlemen, aren't we?"  
  
Gale snorts.  
  
"And Katniss, you're...you're just..." He shakes his head. "It's impossible to get enough of you. And it always has been." He looks back at Gale again, never even blinking, and she recognizes how hard he's trying to broadcast his sincerity lest he be misunderstood. "And if Gale and I have any differences...I think we can put them aside to take care of you."  
  
"Peeta..." It still doesn't make sense. Gale lights her on fire, but Peeta stirs her up. Gale sends electricity through her, but Peeta sends tremors. They're so different, and the feelings they give her so irrepressible, but she's convinced Peeta doesn't mean this. That he's just putting on that brave face of his. Because what man would think she's worth sharing just so he could spend time with her, really?  
  
"I was never here," he says with a soft tinge of amusement to his words. "Just...just carry on."  
  
"I can't. I can't, Peeta, don't go." What if he just packs his bags and walks out and leaves her here with him? More alone than she ever was before, because she couldn't rein in herself enough to hold her more primal side at bay?  
  
"Mellark..." Gale's voice softens a little. "Peeta." And then he extends a hand. "C'mere."  
  
Peeta blinks, watching him warily. "...what?"  
  
"You hit the nail on the head. She needs me. But she needs you too. So c'mere." He rolls his fingers inward, coaxing him like he was a fawn. "Unless you can't let someone else have a moment with her when you're in the same room."  
  
She hears it, the challenge there. Gale's always gotten off on a challenge, hasn't he?  
  
Peeta looks down at the floor with a quiet chuckle. "What, you need my help to take care of her, Hawthorne?"  
  
Gale laughs too, a rich and husky sound. She remembers something he said only a few minutes before, hears it reverberating in her mind: _"I went out with other people."_ Other people. Not other girls, but _people._ She studies Gale's eyes and the lazy way his eyelids are drooping and starts to get a strange sense of what he might've been up to in the other districts, something she never anticipated or expected before. "I want her to be happy. And this is what'll do it."  
  
"What? You, me, her, all together?"  
  
Gale's face nearly splits in half with how wide his smirk goes. "You scared of dicks, Mellark?"  
  
Peeta meets his eyes, a warm curiosity in them, and Katniss feels electricity and tremors linking and spinning all the way through her, from her head to her toes. "I don't know."  
  
"Well, come find out."  
  
There's a tentativeness in how Peeta watches them both. Still not offended. Still not shocked. Nothing, really. It's like he expected this the whole time. Like maybe he's been seeing it for ages. And she thinks. She wonders. She tries to figure out exactly when Peeta mocked the time she spent with Gale and her experiences with him besides when he was hijacked. When did he _not_ encourage her through his silence to spend as much time with him as possible? To figure out her feelings?  
  
How does a man like this even exist?  
  
She lifts her hand too and beckons him forward. This time he doesn't hesitate.  
  
"What do we do?" Katniss asks as she links her fingers with Peeta's.  
  
Gale chuckles. "You need an instruction manual?"  
  
She glares at him, though her annoyance fuzzes a little at the edges as Peeta comes up behind her and presses his chest against her back, cradling her between the two of them. She feels reassurance there. Love.  
  
And then she realizes that she's pinned between the only two men who've ever made her tingle, who've ever had her buzzing and drowning in her own skin, and she feels a slow, tickling churn start up in her abdomen.  
  
She swallows, eyes focusing on Gale, on the way the moonlight falls over his face and cuts it in half. "No. I just..." She breathes out a laugh of her own when Peeta settles an arm around her waist, fingers brushing against the slight ticklishness of her side. "Have you done something like this before?"  
  
His eyes sparkle. "Like what?"  
  
"Like..."  
  
Gale leans in a little closer, eyelids drooping, lips parting in that smirk that he so loves to wear. "If you can't say it, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it."  
  
Another challenge. And one that she's more than willing to meet. She locks gazes with him, narrows her eyes, and leans in as well. "How many times have you shared someone?"  
  
"Shared?" It's Peeta saying that, his chin resting on the top of her head, his words rumbling through his chest and into her spine. "Something tells me we're not sharing you, Katniss."  
  
"You've never been a prize to be won," Gale goes on. "An object to toss around. Anyone who treats you like one? Pretty sure you'd put a fist through their face."  
  
"You're not a piece in their games." Peeta's voice is suddenly closer to his ear, his words brushing her cheek, and a breath catches in her throat. "In _anyone's._ Remember?"  
  
Her eyes begin to fall shut. She feels Gale's arms lock around her too, just beneath Peeta's, feels their combined warmth around her. She shivers. "So what is this, exactly, then, if you're not sharing me?"  
  
"It's simple." Gale touches his forehead to hers, and she flashes her eyes open again, stares right into his. "We're loving you. Together."  
  
Peeta makes the first move. He kisses her cheek, a lingering sort of touch that speaks of caring, loyalty, sticking around, not abandoning her like so many other people were forced to by that damned Capitol. But it's strange. He's always gentle with her, always letting her take the more dominant role when the mood strikes her, but he's also relatively insistent once he knows she's as willing as he is. He isn't tentative like this, like he doesn't seem to know what to do.  
  
Gale takes her chin between two of his fingers and very gently turns her head until she's looking Peeta in the eye, watching the nervous spark therein. "Kiss her, Peeta," Gale murmurs. "Just kiss her."  
  
Peeta obliges.  
  
Every time Katniss kisses him she feels like she's floating in midair. Not falling. Never falling. No, he makes her feel safe. He makes her feel like she might be hovering a thousand feet off the ground, but also like she has a parachute. Like he'll always be there to catch her no matter where she lands. She sighs against his lips and laces an arm around his neck, pulling him closer, her hand burying in his silky hair. But then there's another pair of lips on her neck and she breaks the kiss, leaning just an inch away, just enough to try to figure out the situation, but Peeta doesn't seem to want to give her that time. He holds her face gently in his hands and kisses her again, those long, luxurious kisses that always send a tingle all the way down into her toes.  
  
"How far are we going?" Gale pauses long enough to whisper, close enough that his eyelashes are brushing her jawbone.  
  
Peeta finally gives her a little space, space that now she doesn't even _want,_ and stares at her with wide eyes.  
  
It takes her a long few moments before she realizes that he's waiting on her to answer. "I-I...I don't know."  
  
Gale looks at Peeta. "You wanna move?"  
  
He nods quickly, meeting Gale's eyes. "Yeah."  
  
"Where d'you wanna go?"  
  
Peeta's eyes become a little unfocused as he considers, still trying to catch his breath. "...your room. Where you're staying."  
  
Gale is already standing up, and Katniss instinctively locks her legs around his waist even though he's supporting her easily. "Do you got anything in there, just in case?"  
  
"Anything?"  
  
"Condoms."  
  
"I'll go get them."  
  
It's that easy. That simple. As Peeta jogs out of the kitchen Katniss is already coaxing Gale into another kiss, curious if he still tastes the same, if she made up that flavor seconds before just to understand what exactly was happening. But no, there it is again, just like before. She even brings her tongue forward curiously, brushing it against his lips, and Gale groans as his fingers dig into her rear end just a wee bit more. Her head is fuzzy. His kisses aren't helping matters any.  
  
He sits her on the edge of the bed and leans back to whip his tank top off of his head. He overheats easily. She always knew he did. He tosses it aside before he leans in and holds her eyes, pressing a finger into her lips when she leans in for another kiss. "You drunk, Katniss?" he whispers.  
  
"No."  
  
"Think about it before you answer."  
  
He knows her too well, even after all these stifled and uncomfortable years. She sits back a little and forces herself to take stock of her mind, her faculties. "Buzzed."  
  
"You sure?"  
  
"That's it."  
  
"Thank God." He grins. "I can't do this if you're not into it. I just can't."  
  
She remembers kissing him before, when Peeta was still out of commission, those heated and desperate moments before they took The Nut where Gale only obliged her until he realized he wasn't the one she was thinking of. She touches a hand to his side, to his bare skin, and Gale sucks in a quiet breath. "I know what I'm doing," she murmurs. "I know who you are."  
  
"You just need Peeta too."  
  
She blinks, surprised at the hurt that waves through her. "You said you were okay with this."  
  
"I am." He squeezes her shoulders, more reassuring than anything. "I just needed to remember where I stood."  
  
Peeta's joining them just a moment later, and he holds the box of condoms uncertainly before tossing it on the bed. Gale picks it up and studies it. He nods.  
  
"Do we know yet?" Peeta asks.  
  
They glance up at him.  
  
"How...how far? How far we're going?"  
  
Once again, they look at her, and Katniss huffs out a little sigh. "Why don't we just see?"  
  
"Just see?" Peeta's a man that likes to know his ending point. Katniss knows that. But she can't promise anything else. She doesn't know how this is supposed to work, not really, and there's a little pressure on her shoulders, the looming feeling of responsibility. Two men. One her. And she has to keep them both busy, doesn't she?  
  
Gale reaches out suddenly and brushes his fingers against Peeta's, and, to his credit, Peeta doesn't jump away. He just flicks his eyes down to their hands and then meets Gale's again, eyes widening a little more. "We. Just. See." It all sounds more concrete in Gale's deep, steady voice. He links his and Peeta's index fingers together and quirks his brow, giving a little tug, giving Peeta the option to break away. He doesn't. He follows their hands until he's face-to-face with Gale, just a few inches between their chests. "We play a little. And we follow the heat in our blood."  
  
All of them know a little something about adrenaline, about the way blood warms and froths up when things get tense. It's already happening inside of Katniss as she stares at the two of them, the slight difference between their heights, the radical change between their coloring. Peeta's eyes drop to Gale's lips and he furrows his eyebrows a little, like they're a problem he can't quite solve yet, and she feels another kick in her stomach.  
  
"Can you do that, Mellark?"  
  
He nods. Sucks in a deep breath before shooting it out in a rush. "Yeah."  
  
"So c'mon." He tilts his head toward her. "Ease her in a little. She needs you."  
  
He doesn't need any more encouragement. Peeta scrambles on his hands and knees on the bed until he finds her again, kissing her with a sharpness that almost bends her over backwards. She's surprised, but not displeased. Just leans into him a little more, fighting with him, waiting to see how long his forcefulness can hold out in the wake of her. She gently sucks his bottom lip into her mouth and, as always, nearly feels him give up the ghost. All it takes is a little flick of her tongue against it to call up a shiver. But then there's a groan, a little high-pitched, a little manic, and she opens her eyes to see Gale behind him now, his broad hands on Peeta's hips, his lips moving down the back of his neck, and Peeta's hands lash out, one grabbing her thigh, the other covering Gale's fingers, and she can feel him squeezing for dear life. He arches his back, and she knows that Gale found one of his other sweet spots, that swell at the top of his vertebrae, the one where she can make Peeta purr just by firmly running her tongue over it.  
  
Been less than five minutes, and Peeta's already borderline on catatonic. She grabs him by the shirt and leads him down, until they're laying face-to-face on their sides, where she can see his features in the moonlight. But Gale doesn't want them to forget him. She can feel that. She gasps when he straddles her hip, where she can feel the beginnings of his hardness pressing into her bones, and leans down until he's whispering in her ear. "Did you like that, Katniss?"  
  
He's an overwhelming force, always has been, but for once Katniss isn't ducking away from the intensity. She's standing right in the thick of it, getting off on it.  
  
"Watching your lover? Watching what we did to him? What we made him feel?"  
  
She's pretty sure the noise she makes is a whimper, but she's too distracted to be offended by how pathetic it is. "Yes."  
  
"That's what I thought." He chuckles. "I always knew you'd like watching. But I know you're impatient too. And that, more than anything, you like being involved in just about anything you can get your hands on when you care about it. So tell me. You ready to play a little too?"  
  
She replies by whipping to the side, throwing Gale on his back and crawling on top to press their lips together. He's so comfortable right now. So at ease. She can't help but be a little frustrated by it. She and Peeta are still a little hazy-minded, still a little lost, and here's Gale throwing himself at both of them without any discretion, not a single bit of hesitation. Like he's been dreaming about this chance or something. She wonders if he has. But she also wants to throw him off his game. She finds one of his hands and presses it to her breast.  
  
Mission accomplished. He gasps and touches their foreheads together, eyes zeroing in on his hand, hips bucking once beneath hers. He cups her breast in his palm with a shaking sigh before that hesitation evaporates. He's suddenly working his hand up under her shirt, watching her eyes, waiting for any signs to stop, but she's more than willing, more than desperate, and every trace of his calloused fingers along her skin is sweet torture. And then he traces the curve of her breast with his index finger, nice and slow, and she stops breathing. "Please," she whispers.  
  
He smirks. When he brushes his thumb over her nipple she feels heat pooling in her panties. He does it again. And again. A slow, smooth rhythm, over and over again. "Like that?"  
  
Peeta appears at the corner of her eye. He tugs her shirt up until it's around her collarbone, until he can see Gale's handiwork, and he swallows hard before reaching out to cup his hand. "Circle," he murmurs. "She likes a circle." He guides Gale's thumb into a new movement, a new rhythm. "And a little faster." And goddamn, but she barely catches herself on her hands when she begins to tip forward from the sparks that explode between her legs. "See?"  
  
"Yeah." Gale sounds breathless. She forces her eyes open and feels fascinated by how hooded his eyelids are, by how he can't take his eyes off of her. "Fuck, Katniss..."  
  
"Then there's this..." And Peeta's mouth is locking around her other nipple, and she can't help but lean into him because all of her skin is already tingling and she's arching her back in anticipation, and then-  
  
"Ohh!" She throws her head back when he sucks, his teeth gently grazing the sensitive tip, and a shudder runs through her entire frame, from head to toe, as if she's just been struck by lightning. Peeta does it once more, just the once, and then he reads her mind, reads her body, and backs off, leaving her oversensitized skin to recover. He blows a little stream of cold air against her breast and she breathes out a cry.  
  
"Holy shit, Katniss, you make the best fucking noises I've ever heard."  
  
"Right?" Peeta grins.  
  
"I'm jealous of you, Mellark. You got to find all this out for yourself."  
  
She surfaces right around then, regaining her awareness of the world, and reaches out to grab Gale by the shoulders and pull him up. "You're here now, aren't you?"  
  
He doesn't need another invitation. He wraps his arms around her bare waist and replaces his thumb with his tongue.  
  
There's nothing to aptly describe this feeling, the realization that she's literally being buried in pleasure before any of her clothes have even come off, that when Peeta leans in to capture her mouth with his she's already almost overwhelmed. But how could she be? She's here with the safest men she's ever known, with the only ones who she's trusted to take care of her and not leave her, even when she leaves them first. She knows they won't let her fall.  
  
It's the grinding of her hips against Gale's that breaks his contact with a moan, and his fingers dig into her ribs, almost bruising her. "You know any more tricks, Mellark?"  
  
He chuckles, and Katniss is stuck trying to focus again when his laugh is all warm and husky like that. "A few."  
  
"Show me."  
  
Peeta meets her eyes and cocks an eyebrow, the corner of his lips twitching upward. She knows exactly what he's doing. He's asking permission. She doesn't even need to ask what he's referring to. She just tugs her shirt off and flicks her eyes down to her shorts. She won't do _everything,_ after all. Too easy.  
  
He's coaxing her to lay down a few seconds later, fingers already at the waistband of her shorts, and she doesn't even think about propriety or modesty or anything with Gale in the room. She just lifts her hips to facilitate the removal. Peeta throws the shorts across the room and begins placing little hot, wet kisses up her thigh, his stubble brushing against the soft down on her skin, and then he's linking his fingers in the waist of her panties and tugging them down as well.  
  
There's a soft whistle before Gale settles beside her on the mattress. "I...fuck, Katniss."  
  
"I think that's the plan," Peeta murmurs, and Katniss smacks him on the arm on instinct even as Gale chuckles.  
  
"Keep it up, boys." She lifts her eyebrows. "Best way to get to sex: make fun of me."  
  
"When have I ever not?" Gale asks with a grin, but his eyes never quite make it up to her face. They're devouring everything they can see, every little slope, every little curve, every little scar that they couldn't get to in time when everything went down in the last war. But nothing seems to displease him. If anything, his pupils are dilating, and she's only seen that a few times, only when they're chest-to-chest in an argument or if she meets his eyes for a long, lingering moment. "...goddamn, but you're beautiful, Katniss."  
  
"The most beautiful woman around," Peeta adds.  
  
She's still not comfortable with physical praise, so she turns the tables again and pushes Peeta onto his back. "So show me," she drawls. She straddles his shoulders and sits back a little, trying to call up a more pleasing shape of her body, maybe arch her back and stick out her chest. She has a feeling that she's bad at it, but Peeta doesn't seem upset. He's not laughing, at least. Take that, Haymitch. She can be as promiscuous as she wants. "Show me you want me."  
  
This was what he's been planning all along. She just knows it. Peeta grabs hold of her thighs and pulls her forward, every inch drilling up her anticipation, every quick little exhale from his lips making her shiver, until his hands are cupping her rear end and his tongue is giving her one long lick straight up the middle of her heat.  
  
Nothing better. There is _nothing_ better than the first touch of his tongue. Except the next one. And then the next one. Her hips are rolling before she even thinks about it, before she's even aware of the little sighs she's making because she just can't hold them in. She runs a hand through his hair, scraping the beginnings of her nails against his scalp, and the little hum of satisfaction he gives sends a vibration right through her, so fast and sudden that she grabs his hair and gives it a surprised tug. He doesn't seem to mind. If anything, she feels him smile, and she can't help but smile a little either.  
  
He's a hard worker, and he always acts like she's the best-tasting thing around, but she feels him come to a stop soon, even push back a little, and she lifts up in surprise just as Gale murmurs "Yes or no, Peeta."  
  
She looks over her shoulder. Gale's tugging at the neat ribbon that Peeta tied at the waist of his pajama pants, his eyes intent and his fingers sure. "What are you doing?"  
  
Gale meets her gaze. "Giving an invitation." He smirks. "Doesn't seem fair that you get to have all the fun."  
  
Is he serious?  
  
"If you say no, Peeta, that's fine. But if you want a little something of your own...you just go right back to what you're doing, and I'll try to mirror it, all right? Trust me." The smirk widens. "I'll take care of you."  
  
Katniss looks at Peeta's face curiously. While Peeta enjoys doing this to her, taking every chance he has for it, she's been notoriously gunshy about doing the same for him. He's never pushed her. Never made her feel guilty for it. But it doesn't change the fact that in the past year, when they first became active, she's only done something like this four times. She always figured she wasn't any good at it, and she was nervous about being diligent enough to practice, and so...so did he feel like he was missing out on something? Would that be enough to get him to agree?  
  
Or might he be legitimately curious?  
  
Peeta stared blankly up at the ceiling for a few seconds, his breath catching, licking his still-shining lips.  
  
"Something tells me, though," Gale murmurs, "Katniss...might like to watch."  
  
He meets her eyes, and a shock shoots down her spine again.  
  
Silence. Just a long moment of silence. And then Peeta reaches out and tangles his fingers in Gale's hair.  
  
It almost doesn't matter that Peeta's other hand pulls Katniss back into her original place, where his tongue can work, where his lips are always busy, because Gale tugs her lover's pants and underwear down in one smooth motion. It isn't anything she hasn't seen before, but having Gale glance over Peeta's hardness with a strange little glint in his eyes is enough to make her entire body throb, to make Peeta suddenly sucking her clitoris between his lips all the more ridiculously intense. Gale glances up at her moan, meeting her eyes, and smirks. And then he lets his fingers play up Peeta's shaft, and Peeta falls back with a gasp.  
  
"You'd better not slow down, Peeta," Gale murmurs. "If you do, I stop. Got it?"  
  
Peeta nods. He grabs Katniss's hips with both hands again and goes back to work, tasting her, lapping up every drop of wetness that she can even produce. It's too much. It's so much more than she can take, watching how Gale's hand fits over Peeta, _around_ Peeta, how much more ground he can cover in a single stroke compared to Katniss.  
  
And then there's that moment where Gale leans in and ever so gently kisses the tip of Peeta's hardness, and she could swear that Peeta gives up the ghost in that moment. Katniss is almost dislodged from her position when he bucks his hips, his whole _body,_ and she feels the tension in his neck where he wants to sit up. But a glance over her shoulder tells her that Gale is touching his hand to Peeta's hip and forcing him right back down on the mattress, whether he likes it or not, his mouth just hovering over him now.  
  
"You're a tease, aren't you?"  
  
Gale meets her eyes again with a wide smirk.  
  
"The girls must hate you back in District 2," she murmurs with a chuckle.  
  
"The girls? Guess so. But the guys...they haven't complained yet." And he's so cocky when he says it that it's like nothing ever changed, that he's still just Gale, just flawlessly perfect with setting traps and reading the minds of prey and tugging her braid and teasing her, and she wonders why she thought things ever _had_ to change.  
  
"You stopping, Mellark?"  
  
He gives a quiet groan from beneath her before diving right back in, and he knows her too well now, knows the rhythm to take, the way to move his tongue, so that in seconds she's already back in the air, just floating, just basking in it all.  
  
She can't help a glance over her shoulder, though, and through the haze there's the awareness that Gale is watching her hips closely, that he's matching the tempo of her movements with the way he bobs his head. He's in a zone now. He's in the hunting place. Nothing's going to stop him from his mission.  
  
When Peeta groans she feels the vibrations just rocket through her, sparking her, making her shudder, and she begins sliding her fingers up her torso before she's even aware of it. Just feels the smoothness of her skin as she ascends. Feels the curve of her breast. And then she finds it with an explosion of nerves through her entire being, just the once, just the prelude to what she's driving herself toward. "Jesus Christ," she whispers, and there's a little laugh on her tone because this entire thing is ridiculous. Peeta is licking her up and Gale is sucking him off and they're all in a room doing this together, and it doesn't make any sense. She always thought that if they all somehow lost control, looked for one last hurrah, it would've happened when they were a night away from death. Not here. Not now. Not when everyone was safe and okay and...  
  
...everything was _okay._  
  
Peeta presses against her thighs and gasps when she backs off, his voice rough when he whispers "Gale, I...I need you to..."  
  
She reads him in an instant just from those words. She reaches around and pushes her fingers into Gale's hair, bringing him to a stop. "Hang on."  
  
Gale does. He pulls back and Peeta collapses against the mattress with a little cry, shaking, all of his muscles tensing and untensing over and over again. "I-I just... _fuck_."  
  
She's not used to hearing him curse. She bites the tip of her tongue to hold back her laugh, but ends up snorting instead.  
  
"You all right?" Gale murmurs, cocking his head to the side, and Peeta glances around her to meet his eyes. "Too much?"  
  
"Yeah, I...I wasn't expecting it to be..."  
  
"It's the novelty. It's okay. Just breathe."  
  
"I just couldn't keep going like that without...you know."  
  
He's still such a kid. They all grew up the second they were eligible for the Reaping, she realizes, and yet there is so much about them that is still so young and underdeveloped. She touches his hair on instinct, smoothing it a little.  
  
He chuckles as he meets her eyes, still looking a little starry. "Sorry, Katniss."  
  
She blinks. Her entire body is buzzing and she's literally high as a kite right now and he's _apologizing?_ "Don't be."  
  
"You didn't even get to-"  
  
"The night's not over," Gale says softly, and a thrill races down Katniss's spine again. "There's time enough for everything."  
  
"He's right, you know." She turns her hand until she's cupping his cheek, just stroking along his cheekbone with her thumb. "And I think...I don't want you to wait any longer."  
  
A lock of hair falls in his face as he meets her eyes, staring at her with that intense look that used to borderline scare her but that now lights her on fire.  
  
"What do you say?" she asks.  
  
He licks his lips. And then he looks at Gale again. "...you like doing this?" he asks now. Like he needs the validation.  
  
Well, maybe he does.  
  
Gale shrugs. "It's not bad." Almost absently he traces his fingers slowly up Peeta's shaft, eliciting another gasp from him. "And you? I guess you're not so bad either." He starts that grin again, fingers teasingly sliding up and down, barely even touching Peeta's heated skin. "You don't buck at me. You don't grab my head and show me the rhythm you want. But you don't just lay there and take it either. You enjoy it." He pauses, just long enough to wrap his whole hand around him again. "Don't you?"  
  
Peeta nods, getting starry-eyed and furry-headed. Katniss fights her own smirk back. "Yeah."  
  
"Well then. I guess we're sold." So he settles right back down and swipes his tongue up Peeta's shaft, a long and fluid movement, before sucking him right back in.  
  
Katniss can't help herself. Watching this is exciting, yes, and keeping those tingles inside of her going at full speed, but just watching isn't good enough. She ends up slithering down until she and Gale are shoulder-to-shoulder, just where they belong, and leaning close to touch her lips to his ear for a moment. "Slow down a little," she whispers, and Gale stares at her from the corner of his eye. "He's sensitive. _So_ so sensitive. You need to be careful or you'll just overwhelm him. And that's no fun."  
  
At first she doesn't think he will, but then he listens. He adjusts his speed and focuses his eyes distantly on Peeta's hipbones.  
  
"Make a sound," she whispers now. "Just a hum. Something like that."  
  
He keens out a low, bass note, and Peeta cries out, one of his hands burying itself in Gale's hair, but just resting there, not pulling or pushing him. Katniss's hips buck in response, and that little burst of nerves that comes from pressing against the mattress, that's really not bad. She can get behind that.  
  
"Good. Good. He's getting close. That's it."  
  
He _is_ getting close. She can see it on his face, on the way that sheer ecstasy has just transformed his entire expression. He looks like an angel now. It suits his coloring so flawlessly.  
  
But while she's done this for him a few times, she doesn't know all the tricks, not really, and that's why she's more than a little surprised when Gale slides his fingers forward and brushes them against Peeta's testicles. It's a bare graze, more an afterthought than anything, but Peeta almost lurches off the bed. "Gale!" he shouts, so loud that Katniss swears that Haymitch probably heard it, and then moans so sharply that it's almost heartbreaking how intimate it is. It's incredible. She grabs his hip on instinct as if to stabilize him because cries like that come so rarely, so unexpectedly, that she almost thinks he's in pain. Peeta presses his other hand into hers, and she laces their fingers with bated breath.  
  
"You ready, Gale?" she whispers, because Peeta isn't always the best about warning her, and she doesn't know just how far Gale likes to take things like this. But it's apparently farther than she expected. He picks up his speed immediately, eyes sliding shut, and it takes one more finger graze just as he takes in almost every inch of Peeta in a long suck to make her lover shout out "FUCK!" He squeezes her hand so tightly that her fingers almost turn blue, and she watches, captivated and awestruck, as he comes.  
  
He's a cuddler. Always has been. Katniss doesn't hesitate before she crawls up and lets him wrap himself around her naked body, far too many clothes brushing against her skin for her taste. She almost forgets Gale's there until he chuckles, licking his lips, and murmurs "Not bad, Mellark. Definitely not bad." But then he studies him and blinks, glancing at Katniss. "He okay?"  
  
"He's fine. He's just a girl."  
  
"Shut up," Peeta murmurs somewhere from his place in her chest, but he isn't displeased enough to move away. She chuckles and kisses his head.  
  
"You ready, Catnip?"  
  
She looks up and blinks. "What?"  
  
"It's your turn, isn't it?" Gale crawls onto his hands and knees, his arms bulging with strength, and she can't help but glance over him for a moment to admire the olive shade of his skin, the broadness of his shoulders, everything. Her cheeks flush as she meets his eyes again. She still doesn't feel like she has permission. "Especially if Mellark here's gonna leave you wanting."  
  
"Oh, is that all it is?" she quips, cocking her head to the side. "Because if you're just doing me a favor, I think I can wait for Peeta to recover and finish the job instead."  
  
"A favor? Me? Since when do I do favors for people? No, I'm a selfish bastard, aren't I?"  
  
Quipping isn't as fun when he isn't playing along. "Hey-"  
  
"I'm the man...that hoped your Peeta Mellark would never heal...because I wanted a life with you. Because I never thought that something like this could exist." He presses a finger between her folds, sucking a gasp from her lips. "Because..." He slides his finger forward. "...just once..." Eases inside of her. "...I wanted to know what you tasted like."  
  
Her hips buck forward, trying to take in more of him, but he pulls back in a second. She breathes out a curse that makes him chuckle even as he lifts his finger to his lips and sucks on it. His eyelids hood. His other hand curls into a fist.  
  
She can't help herself. "...satisfied?"  
  
"Not nearly."  
  
When he flies forward and tries to tackle her to the bed she moves on instinct, wrapping her legs around him and flipping him over first. He isn't prepared. This isn't ingrained in him like it is in her. She presses his wrists into the mattress from where she holds them and leans all of her weight into him, hovering right above him. "Nice try."  
  
He grins. "I could tie you in a knot if I wanted."  
  
"I'd like to see you try."  
  
Before he can even try to rip his wrists out of her hold she presses herself flush against him, all of her weight flowing through her solar plexus and into his, and flashes a wicked grin up at him. It doesn't matter how strong he is. It doesn't matter that she's half his size. She's got him pinned, and if he doesn't know it yet, he'll figure it out shortly.  
  
"What's that, Gale? Stuck? Held down by a piece of catnip?"  
  
He may struggle, but he's smirking too, his face taking on that teasing and dangerous gleam that she knows way too well. "Only a matter of time."  
  
"Oh yeah?"  
  
"Yeah. I think I've just gotta tire you out."  
  
"Good luck with that."  
  
But maybe he knows better than she thinks, because he suddenly bucks his hips like a bronco and just that pressure is enough to make her concentration fuzz at the edges. Gale chuckles. "You like that?"  
  
"Shut up."  
  
The next thing she knows she's ripping his pants off and he's sliding his hands up her naked torso, fingers rolling over her ribs that still show just a little more than they should now that everyone's eating better, but he doesn't seem to care. He presses his lips against her ribs, one after the other, his cheek brushing against her breast, just following the path and making her catch her breath as she attempts to remove his underwear without breaking the contact between them. But then fingers bat hers away, and as Peeta begins working Gale's shorts down Katniss is more than happy to cup the back of Gale's head and pull his lips to hers.  
  
"Are you ready?" Gale murmurs between quick, rabid kisses, his last word interrupted by him sucking in a sharp breath as she digs her teeth into his bottom lip.  
  
She doesn't draw blood, but she tastes the rawness of his skin, feels a little flutter somewhere inside of her. "Yes." She steals another kiss with a groan. "The question is...are you ready for me?"  
  
"Always."  
  
"Peeta," she murmurs, turning her head and trying to keep her concentration even as Gale continues to shower her in little nipping kisses. "You have a condom?"  
  
He's already working one out of the package. If she doubted his sincerity about letting all of this take place, those doubts are quickly working their way out of her system. He doesn't hesitate a second before he starts working it onto Gale's hardness - _Jesus,_ but she wasn't expecting him to be quite so thick. She already knows that there's no point in comparisons, that even starting to make them opens the door for so much jealousy that she doesn't know where to begin with, but this is the second erection she's seen in her life, the first belonging to Peeta's, and she can't help it. All she can process is that he's thicker, and the mental math she tries to do doesn't succeed. She can only hope that her body's ready for him, that there isn't going to be any pain.  
  
Gale slides a finger through her folds again when she's least expecting it, and she jolts back to the present with a gasp. "Lube," he mutters. "Peeta, we need a lubricant. Do you have one?"  
  
She blinks. "I'm fine."  
  
"No," he murmurs, gently grabbing her by the chin with his other hand, staring her right dead in the eyes. "You look scared shitless. And I'm not taking any chances with you." He presses a softer kiss to her lips and lingers nearby. "You're not getting hurt."  
  
Peeta's already flung himself off the bed, and she can hear his feet stumbling somewhere above them after racing up the stairs. Always graceful. But as she shifts and glances between them, she can tell that Peeta's hand was shaking when he eased the condom over Gale. It's a bit lopsided. She reaches down on instinct, but hesitates, her fingers hovering just over him.  
  
"Don't tell me you're scared of _that._ "  
  
She glances up. "You trust me?"  
  
He smiles. "Why wouldn't I?"  
  
"You've seen me wring the neck of a wild turkey."  
  
He somehow manages to maintain that smile, but she snorts when the rest of his face becomes completely blank. Horror-striken, really.  
  
"Still trust me?"  
  
He glances over her, from her eyes straight down, before lifting his hips a little. "Don't make me regret this."  
  
Katniss has had constant regrets, at least one for every day she's been alive. But she'll be damned if she lets tonight be one of those, whether she's buzzed or not.  
  
Gale inhales sharply through his nose as Katniss takes him in her hand, fingers loose, barely applying any pressure. She quickly adjusts the condom, but she doesn't retreat. She feels her curiosity. She lets it rise up and take hold of her. She ghosts her fingers over his silky skin and tilts her head to the side, but when he bucks his hips she freezes.  
  
"Don't stop," he whispers.  
  
She's never seen him like this, eyes closed, lips parted, looking like she's completely in control of him. Not once. She tightens her hold ever so slightly, just enough to feel the ridges of his veins, and continues her exploration.  
  
He might feel like Peeta, all hot and smooth and pulsing beneath her palm, but he isn't him. Not by a long shot. The things that make Peeta catch his breath barely make Gale flutter an eyelash, and vice versa. When she accidentally curves one of her very tiny nails, more of an afterthought than anything, inward, Gale moans - heck, he almost cries out. "You okay?"  
  
"Fuck, yeah..."  
  
"You like that?"  
  
"Mm..."  
  
"What do you like?"  
  
He hesitates. Of course he would. So she's left to go on instinct. She presses her torso flush against his, her nerves shimmering at his fine chest hairs brushing against her nipples, and leans in, catching his ear between her lips. Peeta always loves a gentle suck, maybe a flick of her tongue across the earlobe, but she doesn't stop there with Gale. She nibbles on him, just enough to cause a buzz of pain, and Gale grabs her thighs with a hissed "Shit" through clenched teeth, squeezing so hard that she swears she'll have bruises in the morning.  
  
Just as he thought. He likes a little bit of pain.  
  
She wonders if that extends to torturous teasing. She guides him until he brushes through her wet folds, tip to base, and she can hear him already borderline crying out from sensation alone. God. She could get used to this. She slides over him, back and forth, until he makes a strange sound, almost like a mewling kitten. She smirks at that. "Please, Katniss..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Please, just let me..."  
  
She presses her other hand into his thigh when he starts to move his hips, pinning it down on the mattress. "Not yet."  
  
He growls and touches his forehead to her neck. "Katniss, I swear to God, I'm going to pin you down, and-"  
  
"No you won't." Her smirk widens.  
  
"And why not?"  
  
"Because...I think you like having someone else in control for once."  
  
He stops breathing.  
  
"I think you're tired...of holding everything together...and holding it all inside...and that, just once, you want someone else taking you over."  
  
He meets her eyes, not blinking, not looking away.  
  
"So there's no way in hell that I'm letting you do anything. It's me, Gale. I'm in control." She leans in until they're forehead-to-forehead and narrows her eyes. "And you're gonna like it."  
  
His bones seem to go a little weak then, and she pushes him down flat on the mattress just as Peeta whips back into the room, a tube of lubricant in his hands. "About time, Peeta," she murmurs with a chuckle. "I thought you'd changed your mind."  
  
"Oh, I'm sure you'd like that," he teases back, quirking an eyebrow.  
  
"Not a chance." She doesn't hesitate to come onto her hands and knees, glancing over her shoulder at him, and he's just as quick to climb onto the mattress and hover right behind her. This is something they're used to now, ever since things first pushed into this realm. He touches one hand to the small of her back to stabilize himself and gets to work.  
  
It doesn't matter that the lubricant almost freezes her when it touches her from how cold it is, not when Peeta knows exactly the kind of buttons to hit. She murmurs a soft sound of approval and presses back toward him, coaxing him, challenging him. "Just like that," she whispers.  
  
"Yeah?" He works another finger inside of her, spreading her, scissoring her, and her wobbling arms almost cave in from brushing just the tip of the iceberg alone.  
  
She is hot and trembling and impossibly slick. She's barely even conscious of Peeta guiding her hips until she's rising over Gale again - Gale, who is watching her like one of the predators that they hunt, who is flushed and panting before she's even touched him, who is screaming desperation and need just through his eyes alone, and she's struck by it all. She's struck by how much she needs Peeta, yes, but also by how much she needs Gale.  
  
She thought she could get by with just the softness to temper her fire, but now she realizes that being engulfed in flames isn't a bad way to go either. Not if he's here and burning with her.  
  
A strange observation for a recovered fire mutt to make. But she's had the worst of the flames. And now she'd like the best of them.  
  
Peeta's the one to gently guide Gale into her, his hand careful and sure, and Katniss leans back against him, desperate for a reminder that yes, this is okay - this is _good,_ even. And he gives it. He touches her hip and ever so slightly pushes her down, until she feels herself spreading around Gale's head. "Fuck..." She can't help it. Just the realization that she's here with both of them is enough to pull rarely used words from her lips, because they're the only ones that can somehow aptly capture this situation: the feeling of Gale's muscled stomach beneath her palms, the strength of Peeta's chest supporting her arched back, the way that even as she's slowly riding Gale Peeta is embracing her tightly with one arm and letting his other hand find her breast.  
  
This is it. This makes sense. Nothing has _ever_ made more sense than this, and she wonders just how fucked up she has to be for that to be true. How ruined is she from the Capitol that she has to seek solace in two different men? And how much more whole would her life have felt if she'd given up the desperation of trying to pick and choose and had just let herself have what felt natural all along?  
  
She feels Peeta's breath against the crux of her neck and shoulder, the way his teeth gently rattle with each rise and fall she makes, and it sprinkles her with goosebumps from top to bottom, only accentuated by the way that Gale's hand finds one of hers on his stomach. He grabs her hand tightly with a shaky little groan. "Jesus, Katniss, don't stop." It's funny. She expected his eyes to be closed, for him to be drowning in this alone, but no, he's staring right at her, eyes wide and probably burning from how scared he looks to blink, like this is all just some hallucination and he's been wrong all this time.  
  
Has she been the only one trying to pick and choose, then?  
  
She can't take this, this slow riding, this gentle moment of discovery, because God, it's too much, it really is, and she doesn't know how to feel that much without a sense of panic. She doesn't know if she ever will. How those fucking Games have damaged her to the core...she grabs Gale by the shoulders and pulls him until he sits up, until their hips are grinding against each other, and she touches her lips to his ear. "Take me, Gale," she whispers between gasps. "I can't keep doing this. It's too-"  
  
"Too much." He nods, his cheek brushing against hers, before he cups her rear end in one enormous hand and flips them over without breaking a sweat, so that she's pressed into the mattress by his body, that _incredible_ body, already glistening like some ethereal creature in the moonlight with the beginnings of exertion. And this? Damn, it's good. He presses himself flush into her, base to tip, until his pubic bone is meeting hers every single time, until she's getting a wave of incredible pressure with every thrust.  
  
But it's not helping. It's less romantic, maybe, but just as intimate, maybe even painfully so. She wraps her legs around him and shudders from the sheer amount of feeling.  
  
"Peeta," she hears Gale whisper, and she realizes she closed her eyes at some point because when she opens them Gale is still staring right at her, his face twisted somehow in both concern and ecstasy. "She needs you."  
  
"I'm fine," she whispers back. She _has_ to be fine. She's Katniss Everdeen, formerly the girl on fire in so many ways. She can't remember the last time she was publically _allowed_ to be fine. But Gale doesn't seem to agree with that. He smooths her hair beneath his hand and supports the crown of it with this tender light in his eyes that's almost unsettling because she still can't really accept the fact that people care about her.  
  
That they _want_ to care about her.  
  
And she sure as hell doesn't trust her own feelings either, and part of her doubts she ever will.  
  
Peeta comes in from an angle suddenly, his face hovering above her own like an angel. His brow is knit with concern even though his eyes are lit on fire, and she wonders just how he can possibly feel so much at once. How can they bear it? How can they contain it all in their own skin when just the feeling of Gale stroking in and out of her makes her feel like she's suffocating? But he cups her head too, his fingers lacing slightly with Gale's behind her head, and leans down to give her a tender kiss.  
  
And just like that, that suffocating bubble pops.  
  
She tightens her legs around Gale's waist as she threads her fingers into Peeta's impossibly mussed hair, groaning softly against his lips with every press of Gale's hips against hers. She can handle it now. She can handle everything. She can take on the world all over again and make every inch of it her dominion as long as she has these two men beside her every step of the way.  
  
Peeta's fingers find her breast, giving it a gentle squeeze that she can barely even feel before he begins those sweet, subtle manipulations of her nipple again, little movements that he's learned and memorized even though it never gained a thing for him, and she feels her entire body start to smolder. She loves being here. This slow burn. The realization that she's drowning in sensation, and that for once those sensations aren't painful. But Gale's hand reaching between them and rolling over her clitoris is enough to cut her concentration to a halt with a gasp that breaks her kiss. He's careful, she realizes, being ever so gentle and observant, like a scientist, and so she purrs out a little mewl of her own to tell him that, yes, that is perfect, never stop, please.  
  
He seems to listen. He presses a little harder and Katniss arches her back so fast that their hips slam against each other and send pinpricks of tingles through her every limb.  
  
"Oh, fuck, Katniss..."  
  
She agrees. She likes that. She rolls her hips again, and then again, each time those explosive tremors growing just a little bigger. She can't stop. And Peeta, he's just making everything worse by those little nipping kisses he's planting along her jawbone and down her neck. And he's not satisfied by that. He finally tilts her head just a little further to the side and attaches himself right to her jugular, right where when he gives a hearty suck she can feel her blood pulsing through every inch of her. She's going to have a mark for a week. She doesn't give a shit. Who's going to notice it, Haymitch? And what'll he do besides give her a high five?  
  
She doesn't realize she's murmuring unintelligible sounds until Peeta breaks the contact long enough to whisper "She's close, Gale, come on..." And he's right. How does he always fucking know before even _she_ does?! But he's right, and her toes are starting to curl, and she wants to apologize for the fact that she's bruising Gale's arms from how hard she's squeezing them right now but she can't even form a proper sentence when she's trying to beg him not to stop. There's no sense in trying.  
  
Peeta replaces his fingers with his mouth, destroying any thought process she had, absolutely ruining whatever tenuous grip she has on sanity, but when she feels that little extra pressure between her legs, when she realizes that Peeta has touched his finger to Gale's and is showing him _exactly_ what she likes, that's all it takes to send her over the edge into bliss.  
  
She's pretty sure the earth splits right down the middle, really, because a spasm grips her, one that has her clinging to Gale for dear life as wave after wave of undulating rapture breaks over her. She's clinging so tightly that when she slowly begins to regain her head again she realizes she's not even touching the bed, that she's wrapped around him like a monkey, that he's rocked back into a kneel to support her with Peeta's chest pressing against her spine.  
  
Peeta chuckles when her first coherent words are "Holy shit," but he doesn't say anything to tease her. Just buries his face in the crook of her neck and breathes out a deep sigh, arms wrapped around her waist even though she's sure she's cutting off all the circulation from the way she's pressed against Gale. She shifts slightly with a wince, trying to give Peeta a little more breathing room, but Gale's breath hitches in her chest and she feels his arms tighten where they're wrapped around her shoulders.  
  
It takes her a moment to realize that he hasn't come yet.  
  
"You all right?" Gale whispers, fighting to look in her eyes.  
  
She nods. "Why?"  
  
"I'm pretty sure you swore using every profane word in the English language there when you came," he murmurs with a laugh of his own, but he still looks a little pained. "I just...wanted to make sure...I hadn't hurt you."  
  
"I'm fine," she murmurs. But as she shifts again there's that stab of pain she's used to, her entire crux shuddering where they're joined.  
  
Peeta's not taking her at her word. "She's sensitive," he murmurs. He even goes so far as to cross his arms over his chest, expecting an argument. "An orgasm has always just...made everything hurt her after it's over."  
  
She scowls. "Not everything." She's not weak and she's not pathetic. But Gale still immediately moves out of her, slowly, taking extra care not to jostle her at all. Not that it changes anything. She still winces and is careful to stretch out her hamstrings, the bottoms of her feet touching and her knees pointing opposite ways, making sure she doesn't put an ounce of pressure where she's throbbing.  
  
Her eyes flicker down and she can't help but frown. Gale looks painfully hard right now, hard enough that every movement seems to cause him a strange combination of pain and pleasure. When he groans softly she tries to sit up, but Peeta gently touches a hand to her shoulder. She knows he's just keeping her from getting up, but the fact that he's massaging her muscle with those strong fingers of his is enough to keep her from being too angry.  
  
She's still set in her opinions. "I can't just leave you like this."  
  
He glances up as if weighing her, trying to figure out precisely what her words mean, if there's a promise to them. "I'm fine, Katniss. Isn't anything I haven't taken care of before."  
  
"But you shouldn't have to." She chuckles and shakes her head. "I mean, if Peeta and I can...then why not you?"  
  
Gale's eyes sparkle in amusement. "You still can't say it, can you?"  
  
"I just..." Her cheeks flame. She feels a little lightheaded from the rapid redistribution of blood all through her. "...come here."  
  
"No." He arches his eyebrows almost into his hairline, challenging her, making her blood start to boil in frustration. "I'm fine."  
  
"Come _here._ "  
  
"Katniss."  
  
" _Gale._ "  
  
He spreads his arms wide. "Will you tell her it's no big deal, Peeta? C'mon, man, help me out."  
  
There's a long moment of silence before Katniss looks at Peeta, expecting him to be weighing his words before he makes her tip from frustration into temper. But she's wrong. He's watching Gale instead. And he's got that look in her eyes that she can read perfectly now, somehow managing to hold pure heat and steam right in his gaze.  
  
Her heart flutters when she realizes exactly what's going on in his mind.  
  
"He's right, Katniss," Peeta murmurs, his eyes taking a rather lazy jaunt all the way down Gale's body, eyes to the juncture of his hips. "If you move right now, you're going to be in a world of pain, and you know it. So no. You're not doing anything."  
  
" _Thank_ you," Gale says with a level of exasperation as he looks from Katniss to Peeta. And then he just freezes, staring right into Peeta's eyes.  
  
"You're not doing anything. But I can."  
  
Peeta scoots forward and Gale doesn't move an inch. If anything, he straightens his torso a little more. Another challenge. Another gauntlet thrown. And though Gale used to be the bravest man she'd ever met, she knows Peeta deeper now, and she knows that there's never been a challenge that Peeta hasn't met head-on. He flicks his eyes down and reaches between them, and Gale whispers "Shit" just as he tilts his head back.  
  
There's a certain surety to Peeta's movements that Katniss knows she'll probably never be able to match, not just from the fact that her sexuality is still so veiled to her but because, when it comes right down to it, she's a woman. She's familiar with her own body, not necessarily a man's. But Peeta's been taking control of his own urges and desires for his whole life. He knows how to twist his wrist. How to lighten the touch of his fingers. How to make Gale choke just by running his thumb over the tip of Gale's head.  
  
And, by the sight of the small smile tugging at the corners of Peeta's mouth, Katniss assumes he's enjoying himself just as much as his subject.  
  
It doesn't matter that they were trying to save her from any pain, really, because just watching Peeta take control of Gale like that, having him at his mercy for the sole purpose of pleasing him, it's enough to get her heart pounding again, until her blood is pumping painfully through her. But there's something nice in the pain. Electricity in the flames. And she's surprised to realize that she really doesn't mind it.  
  
“Tell me,” Peeta murmurs.  
  
Gale lifts his head, tries to look Peeta in the eye with his hooded lids. “Mmm?”  
  
“Tell me what you like.”  
  
“This.” Gale shakes his head. “Just like this. Don't stop, please.”  
  
There's a sort of darkness tinting Peeta's face, something she first saw the night she found him running with the Careers and hasn't seen since his first meal in District 13 in handcuffs. She wonders how true that little gleam is. How accurate. Or if it's just something that rears his ugly head, that he has to fight to keep it down.  
  
Peeta leans down as he curves his hand again, slowing his speed for just a moment, just long enough for Gale to open his eyes. They hover there, inches apart. And then Gale grabs Peeta around the back of the neck and pulls him in for a kiss.  
  
They're wrestling, she realizes, trying to be on top, trying to know who is ultimately the one in control. She catches sight of Gale's tongue in the moonlight just before he plunges it into Peeta's mouth, so fast that Peeta jolts back an inch before squeezing his hand all the tighter. There's groans, a symphony of them, groans and moans and outright cries every time their lips break for even just a second until she sees Gale's hips bucking, hovering clear off the mattress, and as their kiss breaks for the last time as he falls on his back and Peeta hovers over him, Gale shouts wordlessly and lets himself go.  
  
Peeta stays there. He stays close, trying to read Gale, trying to see if the man's anything like him, but as Gale settles from outright panting into actually putting that oxygen into use, he just opens his eyes with a stupid little smile on his face.  
  
“He's fine,” Katniss says with a shake of her head, and Peeta snorts. “God, Gale.”  
  
“What?” He chuckles and tilts his head until he can see her. “What's the problem?”  
  
“I just...I can't believe this all happened.”  
  
“Oh, and it's my fault, is it?” He smirks.  
  
She leans closer, until their noses are almost touching. “Maybe.”  
  
“Definitely,” Peeta adds as he very carefully removes Gale's condom and places it in the little trashcan near the bed. But he's grinning too, and Katniss realizes that while she's sure she should feel guilty for one reason or another, she really doesn't. This feels... _normal._ Like it should have happened a long time ago.  
  
“Do you remember...when we were all in Tigris's basement together? When you two were keeping watch for the rest of us?”  
  
Both men stare at her, eyes a little wide.  
  
“I was awake. And I remember just...just how weird it was, listening to you two discuss me like...it was okay if neither of you won. That you didn't feel like you had to fight over me, even from the beginning.”  
  
“What's there to fight over?” Gale growls out, his voice rough from all of his various noises. “I mean, it was your decision from the get go, wasn't it? We both wanted you, so you had to be the one to choose.”  
  
“And even when I chose...” She laces fingers with Peeta. “...something was still completely off.” Gale's hand is grabbed at that moment.  
  
They're all quiet. Just sitting there, listening to their own hearts beating.  
  
“What's going to change tomorrow?” she asks softly.  
  
“Don't think about it.” Gale frowns, pulling her close until her head is resting on his chest, until she can hear the steady beating of his heart. “Right now...just stay here. Stay here with us. Stay in the moment.”  
  
“But what if-”  
  
“No, Katniss.” Peeta sounds amused as he curls up behind her, as close as two spoons in a drawer. She realizes that he's still wearing his shirt and pajama pants, and the absurdity of it all makes her want to laugh. “We're here. Right now. And that's how it's going to stay. You've ruined how many afterglows now?”  
  
“Oh, that sounds like a great story.”  
  
“It isn't,” she hisses, eying Peeta over her shoulder. “It's the most boring story there's ever been.”  
  
“Right.” Gale chuckles. But he throws an arm around her, brushing against Peeta somewhere as well, and there's a strange sense of safety in realizing that they're all connected here. That they're safe. That nothing can get them, except possibly a very drunk Haymitch stumbling in for a midnight chat.  
  
They're all settling into silence again, but Katniss's mind is still moving a million miles a second. She can't make it stop. And she can't bring it up, because what if the both of them are sleeping now? What if she'd be keeping them up?  
  
“...am I going to come back?” Gale asks, and his voice is just barely over a whisper, sounding so raw even under the rough timbre.  
  
Katniss is quiet, because she knows that she's the lynchpin here. She's the one that this whole nonsense started because of. And she doesn't want to be the one to call the shots. She squeezes Peeta's hand gently.  
  
Peeta kisses the vertebra right at the top of her spine, his breath brushing the fine hairs at the base of her neck. “Gale...if I don't see you within two weeks, I'm coming to District 2, and I'm dragging you back myself.”  
  
Katniss smiles as she closes her eyes. “Same here.”  
  
“Two weeks?” He chuckles. “I just trapped myself in a needy little relationship, didn't I?”  
  
A relationship. That's what this is.  
  
God, she hopes that's how it's going to stay.  
  
After they all chuckle in turn, she starts to feel a haze of calm creep in over her. She can rest now, wrapped up in them both. Where she's safe.  
  
~~~  
  
The next morning Peeta walks Gale to the door. Katniss can only give him a kiss in the bedroom before sending him on his way, her arms wrapped around herself as a shield. She watches from the upstairs window and pretends not to feel a soaring sensation in her abdomen when Gale pauses at the end of the road and stares up at her for a long few seconds. She can't quite read the expression on his face. She hopes it's some degree of peace.  
  
Peeta wraps his arms around her from behind and rests his cheek against her temple, and she leans into him with a little sigh. Her skin tingles from being so close to him. "...did you know?" she finally manages.  
  
He hums a soft sound in question.  
  
"Did you know what would happen when you asked him to stay here?"  
  
Peeta snorts. "I don't exactly go around planning threesomes, Katniss."  
  
"It's just weird." She turns her head so her eyelashes are fluttering against his cheek. There's still a certain thrill in being able to be as close to him as she wants at any time. "You didn't...hesitate. You didn't fight. You didn't even look... _uncomfortable_ or anything. I mean, have you...had you ever...?"  
  
"Never." He looks down at her with a little smile. "You were my first. You know that."  
  
"But, I mean, you never even kissed anyone?"  
  
He shrugs. "Two girls. You know that too. But no. Never a guy. Never anything like that."  
  
"You were never even curious?"  
  
Peeta glances away, stares at the wall, collecting his thoughts. "...if I was gonna be curious about anyone...it would _have_ to be Gale, wouldn't it? Because he reminds me so much of you." He chuckles. "You're both so similar, and not just in looks, but how you act. You both burn with this fire. It's in your eyes and how you walk and how you live. You went through so many things growing up that I never had to." When he presses a kiss to her cheek she leans in to help, a rare moment of acquiescence to pointless affection, and his lips curve into a smile against her skin. "You're softer than he is, though. More...empathetic."  
  
"It's your fault," she murmurs. "I used to be ruthless."  
  
"Oh, definitely. Very scary."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
“That little songbird standing on her chair and singing the Valley song...oh, I was so scared I almost peed my pants.”  
  
“That's not what you said in the arena.”  
  
He turns his head a little to try to catch her eye. It's rare that she brings it up, especially so casually. Just saying the word was enough to make a chill run down her spine. She's beyond grateful that his warmth is so close to chase it all away. “...you were never a target to me, Katniss. And I don't think I was ever a target to you either.”  
  
“You were.”  
  
“I wasn't. If you found me unarmed in a clearing, would you really have been able to shoot me down like I was nothing? Like a Career?”  
  
“Says the man who ran with them.”  
  
“To find you. To _protect_ you.” He kisses her temple. “Don't you forget that.”  
  
She's quiet for a long few seconds as she sinks further back into him, supported by the strength of his chest. “...there's so much he doesn't understand. That he doesn't know.”  
  
“Mmm.”  
  
“How are we going to teach him?”  
  
“He's a smart man. There's a chance that we won't have to. Besides.” One more kiss, one that makes her elbow him in warning, and he chuckles before continuing. “...he's been through a lot too. He's been whipped. He's been tortured. And it doesn't matter how much District 13 tried to prepare him. You can never be prepared for that, not really.”  
  
She's tempted to disagree, to lessen the importance of his pain somehow...but even the mere thought stabs her somewhere inside. Because she doesn't just have Peeta to be good enough for anymore. There's more people to sharpen her. More people to make her better.  
  
And for the first time...she thinks she might be able to be a decent human being.


End file.
